Oscars: Poland Selects Agnieszka Holland’s ‘Franz’ for International Feature Race (EXCLUSIVE)

Poland’s Oscar Selection Committee has chosen Agnieszka Holland’s Franz Kafka biopic “Franz” as the country’s candidate for the best international feature film category of the 98th Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Awards.

Holland is known for Oscar nominated films “Angry Harvest,” “Europa Europa” and “In Darkness.”

The film portrays Kafka as a young man trapped in the nightmare of bureaucratic routine, eerily resembling today’s corporate world. He is a vegetarian by choice—long before it became common; he is the son of a domineering father, and entangled in fragile relationships with women.

Kafka is plunged into an existential crisis well before loneliness became a side effect of social media. Misunderstood and full of fears, he escaped into a world of irony, absurdity and imagination, creating works that made him one of the most outstanding writers of the 20th century.

German actor Idan Weiss plays Kafka, Czech actor Jenovéfa Boková is Milena Jesenská, German actor Peter Kurth (“Babylon Berlin”) portrays the author’s father Hermann, Poland’s Sandra Korzeniak takes the role of his mother, Czech thespian Ivan Trojan is his uncle, and Czech actor Josef Trojan plays Kafka’s alter ego.

The scriptwriter is Marek Epstein. Šárka Cimbalová produces through Czech Republic’s Marlene Film Production, with Holland.

It is an international co-production with Germany’s X Filme Creative Pool (Uwe Schott, Jorgo Narjes) and Poland’s Metro Films (Marcin Wierzchosławski, Alicja Jagodzińska).

Co-producers also include Barrandov Studio, Telewizja Polska, Czech Television, the Polish Film Institute, Canal+, Czech Anglo Production and NeoSynCon.

Jeff Field, Kevan van Thompson, Mike Downey and Daniel Bergman serve as executive producers.

The film received co-production support from David Grumbach and Alexis Hofmann of Bac Films and the Republic of Türkiye Ministry of Culture and Tourism.

The film was supported by the Czech Audiovisual Fund, Eurimages, the Prague Audiovisual Foundation, Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg, ZDF/ARTE, DFFF and the film offices of the Pilsen and Ústí nad Labem regions. ČPP and Bluetech are partners of the film.

The film had its world premiere at the Toronto Film Festival in the Special Presentation section. Films Boutique is handling international sales.

Poland’s Oscar Selection Committee is composed of producer Ewa Puszczynska (chairwoman), screenwriter Agatha Dominik, director of the Polish Film Institute Kamila Dorbach, director Bartosz Konopka, director and screenwriter Joanna Kos-Krauze, pianist, composer Hanna Raniszewska, film journalist Krzysztof Spór, producer Krzysztof Terej and actor Grażyna Torbicka.

Read Variety’s interview with Holland here. The filmmaker said she had set out to create a “playful” biopic. “I don’t like the cliché of Kafka being dark, moody and depressed,” she explained.